Our Last Post Until Arrival

Our last update…

It is sad that we have come to the end of this journey, but we are so excited to be on our way home. In so many ways we have grown as a family. We have been strengthened, challenged, and unified. We come home with a new vision and new mandate upon our lives. We eagerly await our arrival so we can begin.

I (Gary) have grown accustomed to sending out photo essays. So in keeping with this theme, I have decided to end with one last set of photos.

Can anyone say cheese! Yes, our amazing son has begun to mimic his father’s passion for photography. Caleb’s latest attempt to take pictures is with his camera, made from one of his toys. He has gone from setting up our tripod and pretending to take pictures, to his blocks. We found out, from one of the staff working with Voice for the Voiceless, they make a real camera that is indestructible for preschoolers. We’re thinking this should go on Caleb’s Christmas gift list this year.

The next best thing to taking pictures is playing in the rocks and sea shells that have washed up onto the shore. On one of our Sunday walks, we walked on a trail that went along the ocean. We stopped for a few minutes to let Caleb play and Jenn was busy finding interesting sea shells to bring back with her, for future art projects. She has come to realize how much she loves painting and has been inspired by her travels, to come home and take up where she left off, with a renewed passion.

A wonderful combination of this boat washed up on shore and Jenn & Caleb walking on the beach. We are going to miss this wonderful place called Fish Hoek. It has been one of the best times for our family to rest and hear God's voice for the next step of our lives. We will never forget the amazing beauty of this side of the world.

See, Caleb is watching his father working hard at getting the perfect shot. No wonder he wants to take up photography at an early age.

For all of you who have wanted to see a picture of Jenn’s belly, here it is! Jenn has walked so many places while being in South Africa. She is staying fit for being pregnant. She told me that she's going to have to not eat as much when she gets home. It’s going to be cold out, so getting around will be by car and not feet.

Enjoying the wild life of Simons Town. The safest city of all South Africa. Jenn is attempting to take a picture of her shoes. She is done trying to get the perfect penguin picture. Yes, South Africa has penguins, which I bet most of you didn’t know. As we were told, a couple of penguins some how found their way to Simons Town and decided not to leave. From their offspring, a large population of Jack Ass penguins has emerged. They have become a huge tourist attraction for many to come and see.

Here’s the proof that penguins truly do live in South Africa naturally. Honestly, not all penguins live on the ice of Antarctica. Caleb had the time of his life seeing all the “Happy Feet” as he calls them. If only you could have seen and heard the excitement from him. Each time Caleb would see a penguin along the walking path, with the loudest excited voice possible, he would repeat “Happy Feet” “Happy Feet” We thought for sure Caleb might scare the penguins away, but he didn’t.

This picture is the reward of hiking up a mountain at 5:30 in the morning and being able to catch the sunrise. Elsie’s Peak, as it is called, can be climbed to give you a spectacular view of False Bay. I was told that you do need to be careful when you hike up any of the mountains in the area. They have two poisonous snakes to watch out for, The Puff Adder and The Cape Cobra. Most fortunate for us, it was early in the morning, blowing cold wind, and praying not to see any crawling creatures, that we never saw one. On the other hand we saw a whale in the ocean, which was cool.

Here I am with the three of us that climbed Elsie’s Peak. Jenn wanted to climb the mountain, but she was in a lot pain from her back, so she didn’t come. Good thing, because the wind was so cold. After seeing the sunrise and getting our photos, we didn’t stick around for very long. We hiked up the mountain for about an hour, took pictures for about 25 minutes, and then quickly made our way back down to get something hot in our stomachs to warm us up. Thanks Cathy for leading the way and Lindsey for joining us to embark on this most amazing view to write home and tell my friends and family about.

The waterfront in Cape Town! O.K. I have to say, after going to a lot of the tourist spots in a city on the water, I think they are all like. They have their unique landscape, but all shopping stores you would typically see are pretty much the same. I think I am getting to the point where I don’t want to go to the typical tourist spot, because once you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all. Don’t get me wrong, Cape Town is a beautiful city because of the surrounding mountains, but I think the next time I go to visit a city in a foreign country, I will think twice before walking to a hotspot for tourists. Ultimately, going to these places you’ll end up buying overpriced souvenirs, where if you went to the places that were really worth seeing, you’d end up with souvenirs that were cheaper and helping the people who really need the business.

Many of you will never know what it means to walk into a township in South Africa, but if you do, you will see a large community of thousands living in a remote area just outside from the surrounding city. It was Apartheid that segregated the whites from the coloreds and blacks. It was the ruling party up until Nelson Mandela that made all non-white South African live in townships. Now coloreds and blacks can live in any community they want, but many still live in townships, because of poverty. Capricorn, one of the local townships in the area where we visited quite often, is the home of 20,000 people. The homes there are made from whatever material can be found. Some of the homes are better than others. I was told that a family of four living in a township could live off 20RAND a day. This is almost $3.00. Sadly though, what they would eat is not that healthy. For the three of us, we thought we were doing well if we could go to the store and make a simple meal for $7.00. Poverty is real; the hard part is to know how to best serve these people, because giving money to problem in many ways, makes it worse.

This wonderful woman, who went by Sister Margaret, was one of the most faithful in coming to the home groups in the town ship of Capricorn. I mention and include her in our photo essay, because this past week she went home to be with the Lord. She was a sweet and wonderful woman who had a passion for the Lord and deep desire to see her daughter saved. You would've loved her tenderness and the joy she had in meeting new people. May she be remembered for her heart to see her community change for the kingdom! She will be missed by many.

Will you keep us in your prayers as we transition home and get back to the life of being in United States! We have an exciting adventure ahead of us as we start the process of planning the next step of what we believe God is calling us to do as a family. There is going to be much work for us and we are going to need help. We look forward to soon revealing our plans and hope that many of you will want to join in our adventure also.

Until we see each other soon


Gary, Jenn, Caleb & soon baby Land.

Are You Ready When A Loved One Leaves?

It is a strange reality to witness the death of someone and realize in some form or manner everyone will die. For me, I witness the death of a staff member from the YWAM base here in South Africa. It was very tragic to walk out from the office to see a young Brazilian man on ground with his face lying in a pool of blood. He had fallen from the rooftop of the YWAM Building next door, to the pavement of driveway of house where the voice for the voiceless office is.

In the moment, I calmly tried to help, but there wasn't much I could do. I was left to pray and ask God to grant this man mercy by sparing his life. The next thirty minutes I watched as each different emergency agency from South Africa came to aid in trying to revive back to life this staff member. In the last moments of the CPR, I watched to see if the medical team was getting a pulse. It was when they call out the time of death; a sigh of sadness overtook me. It was going back upstairs into the office to give Jennifer the horrible news that the tears began to well up in my eyes. “He didn’t make it,” was my reply to Jennifer. Honestly this was the first time to see someone die before my eyes. In retrospect, I wished I’d stayed home with Caleb and hadn’t gone out to witness the tragic event, but in the moment I was doing what I thought was needed.

Needless to say, what I had planned to do that day didn’t get done. All I wanted to do was drown my brain by watching movies, just so I could forget what happened. It took me a day or two after the event to reconcile what I witness, but it left a deeper sense of the future reality for everyone. Death has a date with all of us, none us know when, but inevitably it’s going to take place.

The question that needs to be asked is, Are you ready for it and are you ready for your loved ones to be gone when death comes knocking? I know for myself, when I die, Heaven will be welcoming me in because I’ve called upon the resurrected Lord and Savior of humanity. The harder question is being ready to let go of the ones I love when it’s there time to go. Witnessing this death was hard, but not as hard, if I had received the call saying that my love one had fallen to their death. The relationships you and I have with family are such a huge part of our lives and when they leave and never come back, it will leave a spot of emptiness and loneliness that can never be replaced.

The pain of losing someone will be experience by every human living and I pray for all those who are experiencing such grief that they will have peace from God and rest in knowing that if their love one knew the savior, they are experiencing life in the fullness and they are in a place of pure paradise.

I rest in knowing that the gentleman that died is in a much better place, but for those who called him son, brother, grandchild, nephew, uncle; I pray that they are comforted with relief. Life is short, it is but vapor that it is here one day and gone the next. May we all place our fate and lives in the mighty hand of God who is able to keep us, both in this life and the next one to come!

The exciting adventures of South Africa

Hi everyone,

Did you know South Africa has 11 official languages; that’s more than anywhere else in the world. When we sit on a train I hear English, Africaans and Klosa which involves a few clicks. Yesterday on the train we had a funny experience. We have been traveling in 3^rd class instead of 1^st class as it is cheaper and usually the train cars are fuller which is good for safety. There is safety in numbers. Anyway we were taking the 10 minute ride into Muizenburg from our place in Fish Hoek with our friend Dave. Before the train left the station the man next to Dave asked him if we were lost and meant to be in first class. This may seem funny to you but you have to understand we were the only white people in our car – which is usually the case. In South Africa the blacks and coloreds ride in Metro and the whites ride in Metro Plus.

Catching the sunset light of a beautiful ocean view in Fish Hoek. South Africa is truly a gorgeous place

You may be shocked by my use of the words black, colored and white to describe the people but it is the way that all South African’s distinguish one another. They are after all the Rainbow Nation. Blacks are Africans while Coloreds are a mix often with some Malay her in Cape Town and Whites are anyone of white skin color. I must say it is very strange to use these terms to describe people but within this culture it is the norm. I suppose that this attitude is a remnant of the pre-apartide culture which has yet to work its way out. On the other side of the spectrum we have had many “helpful” white people telling us how dangerous the blacks and coloreds are. It’s hard to hear this knowing that we have met so many amazing South African’s of all colors and ethnicities.

Over the past few weeks we have been going into a township about 15 minutes walk from downtown Muizenburg called Capricorn. The townships are where a huge percentage of the black and colored people live. They don’t live there because they have to by law anymore as they did prior before but most of them can’t get out. They find themselves now stuck in the poverty and dangers of the townships. Our friend and fellow DTSer Lydia has been co-leading a number of house groups with an African named Clinton. Gary has had the opportunity to speak at the home groups and will be teaching every Thursday from tomorrow forward until we leave the 24^th. We are so encouraged by the growth and fruit of these home groups and are reminded of the early church from the book of Acts. One of the best aspects of attending with Clinton and Lydia is that we are able to pray, encourage and feed all those attending. The meals are simple but such a powerful example of feeding the hungry both in spirit and in body.

Caleb walking to the beach to enjoy the sand and the sea shell that lying around for him to play with.

The home groups were started by a group of students from our DTS that did their outreach here in South Africa. It is so encouraging to see the fruit of their labors and we are thrilled to be a part of what God is doing. It is through this experience that we have been able to see yet again the beauty of God’s diverse creation through the faces of his children. There truly is beauty all around us.

Additionally we have been working on a project for Voice for the Voiceless surrounding the topic of alcohol abuse in South Africa. I have been working on researching statistics, awareness programs, support groups, education, etc. Interestingly there is not a lot of education about the dangers of alcohol abuse here despite having one of the highest documented incidents of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, FAS, and a culture largely built around alcohol. Alcohol abuse is wrapped up in a lot of other social problems in South Africa such as domestic violence, risky sexual practices which increases one’s risk of contracting STD’s including HIV/AIDS, incredibly high incidence of motor vehicle accidents, increased violence and abuse. It is a problem for teens, young adults, parents, grand parents and great grandparents and nearly every family in South Africa is affected by it regardless of their religion, color or how much they make.

This is Clifford and Clinton, at the home group in Capricorn. Clinton is the leader and Clifford is one of faithful follower who comes to every meeting.

Gary has been focusing on a different part of the research which is personal stories. He developed a survey and through the questions has been engaging with people he meets on the streets, trains, shops, church groups and restaurants. One of the great contacts he has made is with a woman from Nero’s pizza where we get coffee in the mornings. Her mother is a foster mom for a two year old boy with FAS. Late last week he and two of our team mates interviewed her and this morning they had a photo shoot with the family at their home. At this time our goal is to use all that we have found in our research to clearly outline the issue and be able to produce an article, photo essay and or exhibit of some sort about alcohol abuse with the intention of bringing awareness and educating.

This is Khayletisha, one of the largest townships in South Africa. There is at least a million people who live here. (Capricorn, the township where we have our home groups, looks much like this)

Please join us in praying for open doors, effective words and images that capture the heart of what we are trying to communicate to this, the Rainbow Nation. We have a little over two weeks left here in South Africa and we want to use our time effectively. We are headed home in just 17 days and we know the time will fly by. Despite the exciting things we are doing and the beauty that surrounds us I was ready like yesterday to fly home. We are definitely ready to move forward in sharing all that we have learned, experienced and captured with our cameras. This has indeed been a fruitful and ripe year for us as a family and we are bursting with it all.

Again this is Khayletisha, but this is an overview of what one little area of it look like. What a interesting place to call home.

Likewise we want to know all that you are up too. We feel in many ways we have missed out on some significant events this year; friends having children, our nephew turning 1, my brother Matt & his wife Whitney moving back to Colorado, changes in our church Mill Creek Foursquare, my mom turning 50. These are just a few of the changes and we are definitely ready to be a part of life with you again. We can’t wait!!!

Love,

Jenn, Gary & Caleb Land

A picture of us coming back from the beach. Don't we look cute.